P-I archive: Seattle waterfront in 1913

A picture of Seattle’s waterfront in 1913 from the Seattlepi.com archives. View a larger copy of the image here. (Seattlepi.com file)

Today from the Seattlepi.com archive we have a picture of the Seattle waterfront in 1913.

The back of the image, which has been in our archive for decades, doesn’t include information about when it was published, though the date and crop marks made by a former P-I photo editor indicate it likely was published at some point.

A few things jump out from the photo, which is cropped in the version above. Most prominent is the Smith Tower, which was still being built. The tower, named after Lyman Cornelius Smith who was in the gun and typewriter business, was planned to be a 14-story building, but was instead built as a skyscraper after Smith was persuaded by his son.

The building permit was issued in October 1910 and the building opened in July 1914, though L.C. Smith didn’t live to see it. When it was finished, the Smith Tower was the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River.

Also prominent in the 1913 photo is St. James Cathedral on First Hill. The cathedral still has its dome, which collapsed from heavy snow on Feb. 2, 1916.

Joe Wren at our news partner KOMO/4 put together footage for a story on the 1916 snow that shut down the city. It includes the P-I describing the collapse and an interview with Fr. Frank Logan, who was selling newspapers at James Street and Terry Avenue when he heard of the collapse. Watch the story below.